Anything but Average
by Arlecchinaxxx
Summary: Book1. Jachin was just a poor boy from the Narrows who struggled to build up a promising future, his mind set on big dreams having faith in breaking out of forlornness some day. But Gotham did never worship those who attempted to break out of its system and so Jay had to adapt to the formidable rules of the city for achieving his goals. Inevitably, everything became chaos when fate


—Prologue—

_All things the gods bestow, the infinite ones,_

_On their darlings completely. _

_All the joys, the infinite ones, _

_All the pains, the infinite ones, completely._

_J.W. Goethe_

Tupp. The rumbling sound of dripping water crushed the deafening silence in the cell once again. No end, no begging just the everlasting emptiness between two drops.

But no; the gaps were not always empty.

On winter evenings when it went dark outside early and the lights needed to be switched on sooner, the sizzling sound of an inefficient neon tube, attached to the bare ceiling, filled them.

The world had gone dark outside a long time ago in that particular night of cold blue January and there was no need for light anymore at such a late or rather early hour.

Only if one stepped closer to the tiny aperture cut into the upper third of door number 311, one could notice the dribbling of the tap in the cell and there upon make out the despairingly malnourished frame of a haggard creature on the ground which might had once been a woman.

Her outgrown hair hung tousled from her head down to her elbows as she sat quietly on the blank floor leaning against her beleaguered bedstead like a puppet thrown at that place by an angry child.

The pale blue uniform she was wearing, consisting of a short sleeved button-shirt tugged into combat trousers with several pockets on each side, seemed to swallow her corpse-like body as if it was not garment but rather a huge tent of fabric from which her head, arms and feet had somehow found their way out. All together, the woman appeared to be part of the room like some kind of strange furniture; motionless, enduring and lifeless.

But the most stunning about the inhabitant of cell 311 was her facial expression; Most nurses and guards felt haunted and hypnotised by that everlasting smile that was not even a smile in truth but rather just the lower eyelids pulled up a little. Her lips did not curl upwards at all. Tupp. One could have felt reminded of Mona Lisa's secretive in turned mien had there not been those deep pits unter her sunk in eyes and cheeks, which made her face similar to a scull, and if there had not been limitless insanity in her stare. Tupp.

Ten months ago before she became patient 311 her mind spun like a tornado round and round turning an enormous amount of sadness into ultimate madness.

Not that she was locked up without a reason; no it was out of question that somebody in her state of mind deserved nothing but a padded cell and solitary confinement.

Yet for the first weeks none of the asylum's personell who met the young woman understood how this very person could have accomplished those cruel actions they have read about in the newspapers or seen on television. Tupp. Of course they blamed somebody else for her crimes at the beginning as the intelligent and quiet patient coming from a good, wealthy family did not fit the image of a psychopathic maniac. It was always hard to face the truth but the worst ones always seemed ordinary at the first glance.

There was no other explanation to the happenings for them than an undiscovered mental illness which had struck her and now needed to be cured or at least attempted to be cured.

As time passed by they all learned how fallacious the first impression of a person could be. Tupp.

She did never show any form of resistance towards her therapists, nurses or guards but neither did she let them succeed in their endeavours to help her as she spoke not one word of truth. Everybody knew that. It was obvious; she was the unmatched master of lying who knew to control when others should notice a lie and when they should stay in their little bubble of believe.

And so she became what people call a hopeless case. No help no saviour– just lost forever. Tupp. 'What a pity for that beautiful smart thing' , they said 'she could have made it so far'.

Wrong. _Wrong, wrong, wrong_. She could not have made it anywhere. This was the exact place where she wanted to be, where she needed to be. It was crucial.

Not one of her step did she regret, not once would she have moved differently because why would it have been less absurd to keep lying to herself forever?

She sighed through her nostrils and stared with empty eyes against the wall facing her. Tupp.

For hours the psychotic had been sitting stiff on the floor accompanied by the dripping water.

They were having a good conversation; she listened to the water and the water listened to her.

Him, he had never listened to her.

But did that even matter at all? Would it have changed anything if he had? At least she understood by now how terribly wrong and false she had been her entire life– before him. Tupp.

What did she know now that she had not known before?

Abstract questions were always hard to answer and every time she tried to get it straight she got disappointed how senseless and uncomprehending the world was towards abstraction– or rather everything.

She tried to explain, to justify noticing only far too late that it was not her duty to do so and that she did not have to. One day they would all learn on their own, walking their inevitable long way to the answer, whilst she, she had flown there due to him and only him in a blink of an eye. Tupp.

What he had shown her was a new perspective on existence, a view that freed her struggling nature from all the filthying layers of lies, she had told herself for several years before he cleared her mind and soul, in the most astonishing way.

Afterwards, she felt about her past as if it had been somebody else's life, another person who had made choices and mistakes, she now felt distant to and strange about.

Now she saw the world as a perfect complex in which there was no right and no wrong but only opinions leading to perfectibility. No matter how one decided–it was how it needed to be, she was certain about that. It was not fate she believed in, no.

Rather did she believe in his philosophy, the way he had always told her: 'Life is like a piece of art. Every little line, every little shade, figure and shape has its own place because it is part of the composition and the picture may only be complete if all the parts and colours are put together in one all-embracing complex. With life it is far more complicated though... but the principal is the same.' Tupp.

At first, she did not understand what he had intended to say. Of course everyone knew the eternal circle of life and that all living beings had their own prominent role in it. But he did not aimed at something so simple. How dumb she had been.

He aimed at the shadow, for the world needed shadow just as it needed light. Just like a picture the world could not be painted perfectly without darkness. If there were only bright colours in it, the shades would blend into each other without contrast and none of them would be perceivable. Tupp.

On its pallet of variety the world needed dark colours and that, that darkness, that was him. He gave the world the contrast it was missing and which made it eventually perfect.

The only thing she regretted was that she had not understood earlier; the world was not good and bad but instead more like a machine producing contradictory results to complete and perfect itself because imperfection wasperfection.

Mostly, people tended to stare perplexed at her when she spoke words like these, just the same way as she had done when he had told her for the first time. But differently from others she took the time to analyse the paradox from miscellaneous angles and to think about it; in the end she got to the conclusion that he was absolutely right. Tupp.

If something was complete and perfect, it was not complete and perfect in every sense because it was missing insufficiency and imperfection for it was darkness that gave depth, allowing the highs to rise up, stick out and sparkle - otherwise all would have been flat monotony. It all made sense. The world needed transitions to become consummate.

Logically, to perfect the world imperfection had to be added. All tragedy, destruction and suffering was reasonable as these controversies made existence entirely complete good days too definitely good ones and bad days to absolute horror, turning this place, this world and existence into human heaven where everything was complementing something else and nothing could go wrong.

Distracted, she started to pick the skin on her right hand's back above the index finger like she always did when she was deeply in thought. No wonder there were multiple tiny wounds littering her pale taint in that area; her fingernails were outgrown and thinning like knives edges, destroying her almost transparent complexion easily.

Her eyes glided quickly through the room to the small barred window set high on the wall near the ceiling before she recalled the last time she had spoken to somebody who was not part of this universe, the asylum.

It had been Ynez, Ynez Morillo, the old Hispanic woman who had a temper so hot like the tacos she used to prepare with carnitas for the young woman, now cowering on the cold cell floor, and whom she had always called Ninez back then in that other life.

When the guards led patient 311 to the small gloomy room where the ageing lady had already taken place at desk seven and who was separated from the patient and the guards by a dusty plastic pane, littered with greasy finger prints, left by former patients, and multiple holes cut into it so the two sides could hear each other, the elder woman barely recognised the other.

Patient 311 had never had any visits before and therefore she was suspicious about the situation, feeling dumbfounded about the visit of a person she was supposed to have known in the past.

Investigating the room as she stepped in for the first time ever, she realised there were no telephone receivers for conversation as she had expected it; surely some inmates had destroyed them or attempted to use them as weapons for the boxes of former communication devices were still hinged to the side walls but there were no receivers attached anymore. With a plastered cryptic gaze she sat down crossing her legs, hands buried in her trousers' pockets as she leaned back casually.

For the first two minutes the old woman sat uncharacteristically still and quiet which was probably due to the freezing shock she felt to the core of her heart. Her dark orbs examined her disturbed counterpart with an appalled expression, lined forehead crinkling even more evidently before her pulled up brows flattened in horror and ruth. The psychotic woman did not notice there was an agonising bile of sorrow growing in the other's throat contorting her voice to a raspy and low sound.

"What– what has he don to you?! What has he done to you, mío corazón?! Look at you..." tanned hand covering her lips, Ynez blinked away several tears effortfully after she spoke in her typical accent, striving to catch her breath.

Well, what has he done to her, she asked herself sitting in her cell in the middle of the night, recalling Ynez' voice sound. Tupp.

He had healed her, freed her, finally she could be honest and did not feel ashamed for herself and the truth.

People were all the same as all they did was lie about their covered, concealed savage nature and their insatiable need to survive at all means. Everybody had dark hidden in their soul and everybody who denied it was a limitless liar. The question was only, if one got to know the own dark self and secondly when it occurred; was it under stress, due to drugs or the survival instinct? Who knew... But it was not be to denied.

Hypocritically, people chose to act as if they did not respect their dark side and they played their role in a civilised society according to the etiquette pretending to be able to control everything. They did so for so long that most of them were convinced by now, that they were of some species that deserved a good life and a promising future more than others just because they believed they got over their dark self and rubbed it out of their nature, clearing and ridding themselves.

Inside her head she grinned; ridiculous little pawns– how badly they were betraying their own minds.

Unlike him– he was honest to everyone. He had shown them how animalistic and uncivilised humans could be if they only had one bad day or lost only one thing they loved whole heartedly.

Therefore, it was little surprising that the entire city was shocked about the truth that crumbled down on them like heavy pillars of marble, crushing all the lies they had built up underneath with sweating effort to nothing but dust.

How he had managed to escape the last time she saw him, she did not know. All she knew was that he was free– and that was enough.

"You have aged a lot since I saw you the last time, Ninez... how long has it been by now? About ten years I believe..." she responded with a mysterious smile at the sight of the terrified, elderly lady who had once been her nursemaid. With an elegant move she uncrossed her bony legs on the creaking plastic chair of blood orange colour, contrasting her uniform complementarily, and leaned forward with her long fingers enlaced on the desk.

"Now tell me: how come you decided to pay a visit to me this very day, hm?" sliding to the edge of her chair, she continued with a lowered voice. "Even though I've heard you've left Gothville several years ago..."

Ynez shook her head slightly with dropped eyelids and clenched the purse on her lap so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"I just wanted to see my baby gurl again..." the lady sniffed before her eyes opened again filling with tears. "And see that da roomurs I heard in Metrapolis were nossing but lies."

"What rumours?" nearly whispering she cocked her head sidewards. How much she hated when people cried...

Her former nursemaid looked into her eyes with an alarmed expression before she answered.

"That dis monster had destroyed my little chiquilla and turned her into a beast too."

Ynez let out a retarded sob against her palm whilst the younger female started to chuckle moderately, not even sure about what she found so funny while her giggle crescendoed to a full throated laugh, filling the room like a suffocating gas; invisible and yet there, destructing the whole ambience from within though its corroding chime. Even the security guards looked over at them as they realised there was someone else breathing the air of this very same city besides patient 311 whose laugh was just as asphyxiating to the ear as hers.

It entertained and bothered her at the same time, the way people talked about things they did not understand not one bit but they assumed to be able to judge anyway. Just because they scratched at the very surface of something it did not mean they had comprehended the entire composite.

"Wha- What monster Ninez? What monster?!" she panted amusedly, her breath still short of laughing. Ynez failed to accustom herself to the new demeanour of the once sane woman whom she had raised and whom she could not recognise in the character facing her anymore.

"Heem! Dat- tarrible freak!"she snapped in despair.

As she spoke that one last word, the psychotic's face seemed to be struck by lightning; she even let down her typical mask of arcaneness for a moment revealing murderous cold lunacy in her orbs their colour fading several shades darker as if she was ready to kill the next second in the most cruel way imaginable

sucking the human soul right out of the body with the mesmerising obscurity in her glare.

Pulling her lower lids in place again, she looked even more frightening and Ynez caught herself petrified by those eyes, feeling anxious and alarmed about what dreadfulness would happen next. She regretted her decision to travel to Gothville and assure herself about the news in hopes that it was a gigantic misunderstanding.

Unfortunately this was not the case.

Incapable to unhook her distressed stare from the patient's, she sat rigidly on her seat.

"You will only call him a freak once more only." the pale woman hissed in a contrary tone to her slightly smiling mimics, her eyes still captivating and denouncing an unsound mind. "after that you won't call anybody else anything ever again because, as you know, meat cubes of one cubic inch can't talk too well..."

"Ma'am, you alright ?" the middle aged security guard asked as he saw the lady shake like an aspen leaf. The man's unfamiliar voice seemed to wake Ynez from an inescapable trance the inmate set her into and in an instant she got up from her chair.

"I don believe you. I won believe dis is the trooth about my byootifool, intalligent gurl." Ynez whined as she agitatedly pushed the orange object back towards the desk with her palms, upset and bewildered.

"You know people used to deny that the earth is a globe... yet it does not change anything about the truth." The young woman mumbled before she spoke up.

"Listen Ynez, frankly I know you don't want to hear the truth because- you don't want your illusions shattered. It would mean loosing all hope to you. Yet it is still the truth in the end you're not willing to see..."

She couldn't finish her sentence as the guards approached and dragged her away, grabbing her underarms whilst Ynez still stood on her side of the visitor's room, sobbing, half of her face covered by her hand.

It was the last time she saw her. Tupp.

She got up and took a few uncoordinated steps towards the sink, nearly loosing her balance as her blood pressure fell and all she saw were black and purple circles.

Eventually, she reached the washbasin and let some water into the plastic cup standing at the rim.

Then she knelt down in front of the sink and fumbled for the little gap between duct and basin where she had hidden two cigarette's packages for month now, collecting the benzodiazepines and anticonvulsants they gave her every evening together with her dinner separate from the opiates which she received in the morning and had collected as well. The food she always threw away after they left her alone and flushed it in the toilet, whilst the pills, the medication against insomnia and the other one against her maniac attacks, she seemingly swallowed but in truth she pushed them unnoticeably into her nose instead of her mouth, pretending to take them so as the doctor checked her throat, there was nothing to be seen. The opiates she received against her never ceasing headache and those she truly swallowed at times when the agony was unbearable.

As they gave those three to differing times a day and never together, it was no challenge to cheat and she concluded it was probably because the pills interacted negatively when taken simultaneously. Of course it was disgusting to pick the little pill out of her nostrils afterwards but there was no other option. She needed those pills- just not one piece for each night but each peace for one night when the time was right. Tupp.

Crossing her legs she sat on the floor again and emptied the contains of the cigarette's box harshly into her palm; the pills in it were far too many to hold them in one hand and some of them dropped on the floor rolling around like tiny wheels stopping when colliding with an object and without sensible paths.

Her entire life she had been looking for sense- for a purpose to explain what all this was good for or why it was worth to fight.

There was no sense. And there was no fight either. Life was nothing but a various production of existence like in some sort of weird, prearranged experiment, ignited without a reason and carried on by a huge wheel, unstoppable and on a predetermined path straight to perfection. The only sense was to complete and perfect. Just like him- he made no sense either; he simply did things and they lead to results with great impact as if being part of a precise and perfect system even though there was no system at all. Purpose was something invented by humans to make it easier to survive and make life seem like a state worth fighting for.

Bony grip clasped around the plastic cup, she pushed about twenty pills into her mouth, swallowing several of them at once with one gulp of water. The pills were of high dosage as everybody thought the lower dosed ones they tried at the beginning were not working- well how should they have worked anyway?

Closing her deep set eyes, she took another portion of tablets and hoped she would not have to vomit after taking all of them. Tupp.

Once released from something that lasted for an eternity it is not uncommon to feel lost, fathomless and forlorn due to the ceasing hold. Without her castle of hypocrisy, she had locked herself up in until he liberated her, she felt dislocated. As long as he had been here to replace this vanished halt, she somehow did not notice how disoriented she had become. Only after they locked her up again, this time in an asylum, separating her from him, she gained insight.

There was no destination no target and there was no explanation to do nor to not do anything. In fact she could neither be with nor without him. And it drew her soul into an endless loop without escape, leading to the deepest hopelessness to be ever felt.

Sleeping to the other side, whatever might awaited her there, was actually a beautiful solution for saviour in her state of mind as she had always wished for an end chosen by herself and she almost anticipated the occasion with childish fascination and without fear.

To her surprise there were so many people living for the one and only reason of staying alive whilst in her opinion life was not worth survival. If somebody lived only because death was too distant to reach out for or because staying alive was categorised as a duty after birth, it was not a life worth living for. It had no value. She did not want to survive, no she wished for the final end instead of a worthless life.

Depersonalised as she was, she filled her mouth with tablets again without feeling any kind of nervousness or fright at the thought of occurring death and repeated the process until there were no pills left.

"The world is beautiful but life is shit." she muttered to herself. Whoever had told her that was right to the core. It definitely was not him but still as she closed her eyes eventually, she felt proud of him. Tupp.


End file.
